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Living Sustainably » Timber Frame Homes » Greener
Apart from using less energy to heat, a timber frame home uses less energy to build, because wood grows naturally, needing only minimal energy to fell, mill, transport and construct. By contrast, the production of concrete blocks and steel beams takes a great deal of energy and creates unwanted pollution. Using more wood is a good way to help reduce the growth of global warming because wood is a renewable building material; as trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, giving out the oxygen we breathe. Each cubic metre of wood used instead of other materials keeps 0.8 tonne of CO2 locked away out of the atmosphere. Source: European Commission DG Enterp. 2003
A typical timber frame house in the UK uses 6 cubic metres more wood than a brick and block built house - creating a carbon sink of almost 5 tonnes! And in Europe we are growing many more trees than we harvest. In fact the annual surplus of growth over harvest is a staggering 252 million cubic metres – roughly 30 times the UK's total annual consumption of wood! Source: UN-ECE FAO TBFRA 2000.
